Dennis RomeroTwenty-five million dollars for bail is a lot, even, apparently, for onetime music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight.
Bail bonds businesses typically charge 10 percent of a total bail amount to cover the bill and guarantee you won't run. But $25 mil is a different universe than most bail bondsmen and -women are used to, so there's no guarantee that even $2.5 million would unlock Suge's cell.
Knight has his fans and supporters, however, and after his arrest on suspicion of murder earlier this year they started a GoFundMe page to crowdsource money for his bail.
Unfortunately for Mr. Knight, the fundraising page was taken down recently.
A spokeswoman for GoFundMe wouldn't go into specifics. Here's what she said:
After review by our team, the campaign in question was removed from GoFundMe due to a violation of our terms and conditions.
Among those terms and conditions is a prohibition on “campaigns in defense of formal charges of heinous crimes, including violent, hateful or sexual acts.”
We guess a murder case would fit the bill here.
This might not have been a huge setback in the effort to free Knight, however:
The website HipHopDX, where we first spotted news of GoFundMe's deletion, reports that the campaign initially raised “$0” of a “$202,500 goal.”
Credit: TMZ/YouTube
That goal was based on Knight's original $2.025 million bail, which was later raised to $25 million at the behest of prosecutors.
The rap impresario was in court yesterday. He asked a judge if he could represent himself in his murder case. The judge said no. Amazingly, Knight did not faint, pass out or require any medical attention.
His next court appearance was slated for May 27.
Send feedback and tips to the author. Follow Dennis Romero on Twitter at @dennisjromero. Follow L.A. Weekly News on Twitter at @laweeklynews.
Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.